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There should be a clause that says the owner needs to put in a lot of effort too

I agree - it should be specific about what the owner needs to do to meet the commitment. Maybe in the form of a comprehension test at the end...

But there are also people taking money as "dog trainers" who make lots of promises they can't keep, take the dog away from the owner and "train it" and then return a pathetic mess. There are some that do this and return a dog that was much happier than at home - to an environment that's not ready for a dog (trained or not).

Either way the owner didn't get what they thought they were paying for. And the dog trainer is in the best position to see what kind of owner they're dealing with and adjust or refuse accordingly.

I refuse to take dogs without the owner...i know some good trainers do, but i believe that i can get thing happening with dogs and the owners cannot..so they need to learn together. heeling is so often so easy for someone who is animated with the dog and you get a flat owner with no timing and no matter how good the dogs is with the trainer it won't happen. And personally no matter how bad my Annabelle was in the beginning (Aggression with people and dogs) Ones I decided i would have her i was never going to allow anyone to take her . She needed to know i would always be there for her, so we went on our training and learning adventure together....i did about $8000.00 worth of Seminars and work-shops all over Australia with her...in the end she was not aggressive at all, but we kept going and learning....Turid Rugaas in Finland is next this July......Europe here we come for 6 weeks of water rescue training and other dog training...Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the UK

I refuse to take dogs without the owner...i know some good trainers do, but i believe that i can get thing happening with dogs and the owners cannot..so they need to learn together. heeling is so often so easy for someone who is animated with the dog and you get a flat owner with no timing and no matter how good the dogs is with the trainer it won't happen. And personally no matter how bad my Annabelle was in the beginning (Aggression with people and dogs) Ones I decided i would have her i was never going to allow anyone to take her . She needed to know i would always be there for her, so we went on our training and learning adventure together....i did about $8000.00 worth of Seminars and work-shops all over Australia with her...in the end she was not aggressive at all, but we kept going and learning....Turid Rugaas in Finland is next this July......Europe here we come for 6 weeks of water rescue training and other dog training...Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the UK

I agree that the owner and dog should be a package deal, it is the only way. I remember when I was dealing with a fear aggressive dog, I had never experienced a dog like this in all my years of owning dogs and the first thought was wouldnt it be great to send her off to such a dog trainer and then get her back all fixed. Now I was an " experienced dog owner" and I exercised and provided my dogs with a great environment and they all turned out well behaved and reliably social but I actually knew very little as I was about to discover.

Anyway there wasnt anyone close by I could send her off to although I did leave her for a week with her breeder to observe. The only way was to do the hard yards myself with the help of a trainer I had a 1000 km round trip to see, joining the local dog club and doiing a lot of reading. I really worked hard with that dog who was incredibly fearful of strange people and dogs and would chase away any threat relentlessly if given the chance, and would express her anal glands and would scream with fear and become almost catatonic to the extent where her eyes would glaze and it was very hard to reach her at all.

The journey taught me so much about dogs and I realised how little I actually knew despite having always had nice well adjusted dogs. I made huge advances with this dog but she was genetically flawed and I would always need to manage her, although it was a relief to get her to the point where if someone spoke to me through my car window that she didnt spray the inside of the car with anal glands and become totally hysterical and I could walk her out and about with out incident as long as I didnt push her past her thresholds.

I discovered sometime later that the breeder had stopped using the sire because of temperament issues. In the sterile world of her kennels it would have been difficult to really assess the temperaments of the breeding stock because they never got to experience life outside the limited world that they knew and understood. The example of a breeder who had over time became more akin to a puppy mill than an ethical breeder.

This dog taught me so much about a world I knew little about and I think the average dog owner is often just like this. The only way to do the journey is to make it with the dog. You have to learn to understand how it all works. My experience with my fearful dog changed a lot about how I worked with dogs moving forward and has stood me in good stead. I now train dogs and compete with them in a number of different disciplines as well as working my farm with them. Who would have thought that one little dog with so much fear would result in such a journey.

I don't know about "Dog training is broken" because many dogs receive no training at all. Over the last several months I've been to two pounds a few times and a shelter...as we're thinking about getting another dog. I'm shocked but not surprised at the large number of dogs who don't know what the word "sit" means.

Some dogs were just too hard to handle and we know what will happen to them...all because some "owner" couldn't be bothered to train them. I rang a lady who had a dog for sale on Pet Rescue who had rescued the dog as a pup...she told me that not long ago she paid a "Dog Trainer" to come and "Train" the dog.

She told me this so called "Trainer" was very rough and harsh with the dog and told her if the dog does anything wrong...throw a broom at him. It seems anyone can be a Dog Trainer...another problem as these "experts" cause more harm than good...I've seen some of these clowns at All Breeds Training.